


Scraping my Skin.

by fearless_seas



Series: Halemadge || Pythias & Damon [9]
Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American History RPF, American Revolution RPF
Genre: Angst, Broken Promises, Emotional, Five Stages of Grief, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Memories, Young Love, self inflicted wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 23:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11588598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearless_seas/pseuds/fearless_seas
Summary: How does Benjamin Tallmadge go on with the realization that Nathan Hale is truly gone.





	Scraping my Skin.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're reading a quick note: if you haven't read Rose Petal Hands before reading this, you should go read it! This takes place immediately after Gold Flecks in Ink--thanks for reading!

**3:18 a.m. || October 2nd, 1780**

 

____________________

 

          Leaving behind the gold flecks among the inky sky and John Andre’s cabin cell, Alexander Hamilton led Benjamin Tallmadge back to the tents with a reassuring hand wrapped around his wrist. Still dark in the early morning, under a rather piercing sky. The soles of their boots dragged against the frozen soil and frost coated the tree roots. They reached their destination and stares faltered to the ground. The warm wrap across his veins ceased, edging off in different directions. Before they parted ways, Hamilton stopped short in the dim, pulling Ben closer and their chests met. There were no words, and their gazes did not cross. It was distress and wishful thinking in those arms. A pair of watered eyes were molding together with his own and those fingertips on top of his veins. Alexander drew nearer, slipping his arms around the taller’s waist, leaning into his chest, his forehead against the coat. Ben hesitated before landing a palm on his shoulder to hold him in place.

          Then, guiding each other away from the outstretched arms, they went their separate ways. He watched Alexander march off until he disappeared into the fog; he didn’t look back. Ben bit his lip, chewing on the flesh. He did not want Alexander to leave. He was so utterly exasperated with being entirely alone. The trees at the edge of the valley shook in the wind and they felt like his bones, rattling on top of the earth. There he was, always longing for something that was not there and would never come.

____________________

          His tent felt so small. His forehead throbbed and a mysterious pain shivered deep beneath his brow, he lept a knuckle up to the skin, rubbing it. Dizzy, his head spun as if he was drunk. He felt poisoned, intoxicated and the surface of his exterior; dirty. Those fingers settled to his swollen eyelids, tracing across his lashes, eyes still leaking with brokenness. The hand detracted away from his face and he blinked in the eerie emptiness of the atmosphere. Every layer of clothing felt heavy and his shoulders couldn’t stay straight. Every raw inch of his body was tired. He was exhausted with his strive to love life; he had not stomach left for the cause. His sky seemed to crumble like burnt paper between his grasp.

          The tent seemed all the same except for one thing; Nathan wasn’t there. There was a cot with a single blanket, a lamp hanging from a thread on the post and when it flickered it painted brilliant sonnets against the ceiling. There was the landscape beneath his tread and he was all alone. He stood, unable to make a movement but to incline a quivering arm against the post and watch in sequence at the silhouette he envisioned in the cot. His chin trembled, but there was no one to comfort him now. There was no one to latch their arms around his waist and hold him against their chest. Perfection ripping into a solemn little scene; it glowed brighter than the flame ever could. Out of the corner of his eyes, sunshine hair rippled out against the pillow and fluttering lashes shifted against his cheeks. Ben hesitated to blink, but he did and the vision vanished.

          Ben’s grip left the post, traveling down to his side and a fist coiled his fingers together, the first set of knuckles uprooting a button and working its way down until he came to the last one; unhooking each and his coat floated to the ground.

_"Now for the jacket.”_

      That voice resonated in his ears, like a song and he swore he felt Nathan's fingertips undressing him like before. He didn’t bother to set the jacket right on the back his chair where it belonged. His chest began to shake as he bit his lip to hold back tears, hanging his head, a sob pulsating in his throat as he struggled to restrain it and it knocked against his teeth in the fight. Everything was drifting back to him, taking him back and the whispers consumed him, echoing in his ears. Registering just how intimate those touches were when they traveled down his spine and when Nathan’s nimble fingers unlooped his buttons and scattered across his bare chest; undressing him in the intimacy of a last longing touch. Those words were beginning to haunt him.

_“Benjamin Tallmadge, there would be nothing which would give me more pleasure.”_

          Cold air trickled onto his body as soon as the coat fell to the dirt. Ben could still recall their letters, every syllable and another tear slithered to the carve of his neck. His hair slided in front of his eyes, it was too blurry for him to tell perfectly. The wrap of his boots were climbing up to his knees and he envisioned the material crawling from his legs, squeezing his stomach, clustering at his neck and twisting; finished just as Nathan was. He swallowed and his tongue felt like sand. Collecting himself, his unsteady nails distorted, tugging off his waistcoat, his muscles were molding together; he couldn’t breath.

_“I’ll throw my voice in the stars, if you will not listen; perhaps, the echo of my words will be written for you in the clouds by sunrise.”_

          And that dropped to the ground, joining his coat. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and tipped his chin up. A sense of frantic fear shattered through his gut and like disease it tightened about his lungs and his gasping reverted to a pant as he slapped a palm against his breast, searching for air that would not arrive to his lungs. Arduous, the boundaries of his perception like black powder, skull light; he sensed his own form betraying him and his soul drifting amid a restless sea. Unable to see as the anxiety of everything was ripping him apart. There was only one more layer left but it seemed like a cliff he could not reach as he stretched forcingly to the edges that perched on his hips loosely. He tugged it over his head, he was out of his own skin, watching himself curl in panic.

_“You’ll be Benjamin Tallmadge; rugged soldier, talented scholar. You’ll be the man who graduated early, the one who tossed rocks through the windows at Yale and passed me notes in our lessons. You’ll be just the same because I’ll always be here, I am not going anywhere.”_

          The weight of those past lies lugged his shirt down and he was now bare of all upper clothing. He stood about him, chest heaving and body shaking, recollecting their highs in striking hues, as in the color of his eyes danced about him or the pale grip of his hand on his own skin or the scarlet of his smile. His sorrow was shaded, gray of the grief and the white of his lies. The phantom of those ashen hands brushed his wrist and Ben’s other hand grasped at the area but there was nothing there. There was no Nathan and he was not hidden in the shadows of his silence.

          The chilling current culminated against his skin and he rose wavering palms before his face. Those same knuckles, Nathan bit as he pressed careful kisses into them. Ben scratched the area, and ripped his nails across the paler skin, tears streaming across his lips and for a moment his nose felt swollen from Nathan’s punch and there was blood from that night. His nails moved across the stretch; the tincture did not remove itself.

_“...there are so many more stars than planets.”_

          All of their stupid fights were swimming around him and he could feel nothing else. The power of those words rebounding throughout his body as they penetrated his core and scraped at his spirit. He sensed those three altering words simmering beneath his surface, and he recalled the first time he heard those syllables pass Nathan’s lips. He was dazed, faint, fists gripping his hair and he couldn’t feel the pinch on his scalp; the pain in his heart was _so_ far greater. All those letters fluttered about him, gathering, forming themselves into the sunshine boy with everything that he was and the first articles were his eyelashes shuddering against newspaper looking cheeks.

          Nibbling on his chattering teeth, rubbing eyes so swollen he could barely even see. He could see the golden ink reach forward, fingertips of lyrics smoothing the top of his hand, Ben stepped back hitting it away. Gentle, those letters settled on his left elbow, his nails pushed it off. The words dismembered like wind, circulating around him, and he dropping to his knees with his face in his hands.

_“I love you.”_

          A scream was rising in his throat, he forced it down into his gut panting to catch air--to simply breath without Nathan’s pieces suffocating him. His mouth was drained and he discovered in the glint of the dimming light the print of pale fingertips on his arm that did not match with his tone; they were Nathan’s fingertips. Ben’s right palm swatted against the area, rubbing it, he removed his hand--they were still there. The curl of cherished touches were rising on his sheath, in the shape of pale kisses on his neck and his lips changed complexion, dotting across his stomach and completely submerging his wrists. The ghost of Nathan’s embrace parading on his surface and unlike a stain he could not remove them.

_“You keep your soul in your eyes, Damon.”_

          His nails scratched at the ghosts and he was growing slowly insane, striking himself and it was as if that ghost defined him; it was terrifying. He didn’t know how to let go. The words were twisting around him, swirling like a twister across his curled form, down on the floor, bare and locked to anything. That phantom nestled in his torso and was not going to alter, he is in every room and every bone, in every hour and in silence, every little shard of himself; at least he had not lied that night.

_“With every bit of everything, until the stars die out and the universe halts, Nathan Hale; you are the largest piece of me."_

          Ben dragged nails across his chest and to the bottom of his ribs, across his abdomen and his lips dripped with sweat, it tasted metallic like blood and it consumed all of his senses.

_“Benjamin, I am not going anywhere.”_

_“You were gone…”_

_“I promise.”_

          That promise; it was all he ever had to keep. Ben could recall all day that Nathan never did come back and that was the last time he ever felt any disguise of warmth; but Ben never opened his eyes, even as he was cursing, punching, crying out loudly for anything to take him from his misery and that there was no use living when his reason disintegrated and Nathan held him in his arms and brushed away his tears, divulged in all of his fears with his reassurance. _You never opened your eyes._ Nathan slipped out of the tent and Ben could hear his nose twitch as he stifled in his own emotion. The last time Ben was held, and he never even opened his eyes. The rustling ebony words were drowning in his ears, clamping his palms over them but the noise did not stop.

_Why didn’t you open your eyes, Benjamin?_

          “Enough!”

          The sound brought everything to a rest and it collided to the ground. His breathing was the only sound that met his hearing now. His hands were away from his ears, a large sob escaping his vocal chords and he clenched his eyes shut, shuddering. Numb and he could not move, petrified. A stinging sensation came from his chest, not flinching as his fingers trailed the self inflicted scratch marks from his shoulders, his collarbone, chest and stomach all covered up in flaring rouge marks like some sort of sick decoration. The pale markings were gone. But _he_ wasn’t.

          Ben tipped his head, the crown of his brows catching him in the shadows of the tent, standing there, tall and illuminated, a glow carving his silhouette into the atmosphere, sharp and bright as the sun. Ben did not jump, why would he be frightened now of the only thing that could ever console him?

          “Why are you here?”, his head fully quipped up, Nathan was truly there; he wasn’t an illusion.

          The glow was silky, shifting around him and his blonde hair floated around him, his pale skin and lips, when he moved sprinkles of moonlight trickled off of his shoulders and floated onto his arms. Shining blindly and he flickered these away with a noticeable annoyance, landing on the soil and they burrowed in, disappearing. Nathan shook his head, eyes closing briefly and if it not for his sapphire eyes, he could almost disappear. Mouth shut as if he could not speak and his tongue was trapped underneath the weight of too many unsaid words.

          “You broke your promise.”

          Nathan nodded slowly, almost timidly, his fingers rubbing together, taking a hesitant and thoughtful step forward.

          “You were already haunting me inside, now you’re going to be present in my tiresome existence?”

          Nathan did not move, melancholy eyelashes lethargically passed in an almost sympathetic manner across his cheeks. Ben rose to his feet, unsteady, panicked, and full of anguish. He slapped sweaty hair off of his forehead, gathering forward towards the figure.

          “I will shed all of this bone if only you will speak,” Nathan remained silent though the crinkles of his eyes burned with the passion to do so, Ben softened, shoulders declining, “Please--Nathan--I need your voice--please, give me some sort of song.” his voice was like music. It was no use and he subsided, shutting his eyes and more tears gathered in his eyes--he was surprised that there were any left for him to give. He was so utterly distressed with giving, so overworking of feeling, so-- _hurt_ and unable to realize anything else. He had so much inside of him but he could not pour any of it out. He cupped his own face, quivering, “How can you ever look at me like this?”

          Ben felt arms wrapping around him, he did not struggle out of their grasp, but fell deeper into everything he had wished for. His bare chest feeling cold to Nathan’s discolored touch. Everything he ever needed was standing right before him, stringing vines around him. “I am sorry that I never opened my eyes, Pythias.”, this didn’t matter no more but he was filling him up like bile that he couldn’t release.

          Ben looked up into skies on top of Nathan’s cheeks and those stardust lips grinned, pressing a kiss to his forehead. Ben leaned into the touch, shutting his eyes, “I love you.” the words passed his teeth but when he looked up, Nathan was gone. It was only himself, bare, restless and naked in the winter air with scratches lining across his torso. His shoulders tumbled and his chin trembled, falling onto the cot, curling himself up into a ball, tucking his knees up to his chest. His eyes closed, sucking in a large breath through his convulsing lungs. His stomach felt sick, his skin stung and his eyes were raw. The pillow felt like stone, teeth chattering together, chewing on his tongue.

          Benjamin Tallmadge could still recollect that night quite clearly. He did remember the last time he was held; he did recall in solid fragments the folds of Nathan’s hands on the small of his back; he did remember his voice carrying the form of his words; he did remember the scent of roses, and he did not know why, but it was there, present; they were in a garden of promise; that’s what Nathan told him; a promise, a promise he would never forget.

_“Please, Nathan…”_

_“Benjamin, I am not going anywhere.”_

_“You were gone…”_

_“I promise.”_

          Imprinted into his brain like scorching flames that left a tremendous scar. There has never been an instance where Ben did not regret not opening his eyes. At the time, it did not matter because even as he was blind, he could still recognized the way his lover's feet stole the soil beneath them, their trembling breath and his tongue fighting to convey so many verses but his lungs were tired of holding up planets; that’s what they were to him; planets.

          They conveyed a few lines, so absolutely beautiful one might think they were scripted, everything felt like poetry and a soft reassuring dream. Ben never wanted it to end. But, then Nathan left;

          He’s never been the same.

          From that first day at Yale where their hands met and he witnessed a true sky for the very first time;

          He’s never been the same.

          Somehow he learned to find meanings in the smallest ideas. But he always loved him, he always did. At first he could barely understand why his heart seemed to dance against his ribcage in that boy’s presence. It took him longer to realize why, but he still always loved him. He was everywhere, in everything. References and memories as if he was made of them. No matter how many battles he’d fought or how many times bullets whizzed by, nearly clipping his ears or his visage felt slick with blood, nothing could ever compare to the intense fear he experienced when his lonesome fingertips brushed the empty side of the bed; and there was no other sickening feeling then envisioning Nathan climbing up the stairs to his fate--his demise.

          He was cold; longing for the sensations of his touch. He was thirsty; craving for the taste of his lips. He was sad; hoping for the warmth of his love. His desire for him seemed nearly selfish. His heart was filled with something terrible, some form of sickness he failed to understand. He did not know if it was his love for Nathan or pain from the absence of his love. He knew though that he was tantalized, moved beyond the point of paralysis. Time could never heal.

          Ben sunk farther into the cot, burying his nose, hoping to catch just a tiny fragrance of him. His own body ached, shuddered, quivering weakly. It was all to much, he decided, expressing four years of grief all at the same time. This was the first time he’d cried over sunshine, skies and how beautiful they all seemed rolled into one human being. Nathan Hale was never coming back. All those soft, sweet things he had left behind, in his home, in his head, in his heart… half of himself dying just along with him. The darkness had taken Nathan over, the sickness lured him in, the gleam in his eyes seemed blown out like a candle. He wished to go with him. Sometimes, Ben saw a flicker, a light that shone for them; he holds onto that light tightly, before it’s gone again.

**Author's Note:**

> You can always find me on Tumblr @sonofhistory comments are HIGHLY appreciated, honestly just all comments are so nice so thank you if you leave a comment because I will probably squeal. Thank you for reading if you made it this far! If you have any questions shoot them to the comments, I'll answer!


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